The Dilbert Black Swan Portfolio: a skeptical/practical guide to investing - <AUTHOR> http://attardi.org/dilbert-black-swan-portfolio/ <comment><USER2> Speaking despite having made a lot of money on ARM Holdings in the '90s: this logic of looking one vertical level below the most-hyped companies is not as clever as he seems to think it is ("I work at a hosting company, I have an iPhone and an iPad, a-hah! ARM Holdings!"). It is a 101% certainty that the pro's trading ARM in the market are every bit as well informed as you are, if not more so. Picking stocks is picking stocks; knowing that an iPhone has an ARM chip in it doesn't constitute an edge.

Similarly, having read the Wikipedia page on Contango wouldn't be enough to get me to go up against professional full time oil traders.

Also, aren't commodity ETFs supposed to maximize the risk of trading uninformed against professional shark traders? I didn't follow the hype cycle on this story, but I know it started with "DO NOT BUY COMMODITY ETFs".

<comment><AUTHOR> Spot on. I do mention in the article that the price of ARMH probably takes everything I mention into account already. I fully realize that buying ARMH right now is a gamble. It's one I'm willing to take though (even if just for the fun of it). Someone else more rational might want to stick to index funds. :)

<comment><USER2> Your entire coverage of this point is a single heavily-hedged sentence at the end of your stock-picking section, followed by "they could have said the same about AAPL", as if the success of the iPhone somehow guaranteed that ARMH would track AAPL (it does not). Also, the word "perhaps". No, not "perhaps". Iron certainty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The red flag that I see which tells me that this guy doesn't know what he's doing is his inclusion of a leveraged ETF into a long term (i.e. not day traded) portfolio. Leveraged ETFs are weird and they _do no_ return 2x over a long period of time. I'm not talking about their fees, I'm talking about the fundamentals of how they are put together. These funds attempt to give you 2x every day and they reset every day so that over the course of a week they have tried to double the index's returns 5 times over five separate days. They have not tried to double the index's return over the entire week.

tl;dr Leveraged ETFs are for day-trading not buy and hold investing.

<comment> T-hawk It may be worth taking a quick trip into why the math of leveraged ETFs doesn't work. The fundamental problem is that they lose more on losses by the underlying investment than they gain on gains by the underlying investment.

Suppose that the underlying investment starts priced at 100, jumps 25% on Monday to 125, then on Tuesday drops 20% back to 100.00. It ended as it began with no gain or loss.

What did our 2x ETF do? It began at 100, ended Monday at 100 + 50% = 150.00, then ended Tuesday at 150.00 - 40% = 90. It lost a big chunk of value relative to its completely unchanged underlying investment.

<comment><USER4> In other words, the volatility of oil prices can kill your _leveraged_ investment even if your long term bet on rising oil prices is correct

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is genius! But accidentally genius!

The author starts off well, makes an important point about stock picking never being better then a random walk and then.... picks stocks. Pure genius!

It shows you in a true, completely unintentional way, how so many people get sucked into this even when they trying as hard as they can NOT to get suckered like everyone else.

Dilbert's strategy is essentially a bet on the global economy minus Europe. Since Europe is a part of the global economy, I'm guessing +/- Europe doesn't make much of a difference.

The author's investment is a complex bet on individual stocks, commodities, and more commodities. It's just amazing how unaware smart people can be when they are outsmarting themselves.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually the portfolio is bonds, an index fund, and only a small fraction in a commodity and one stock. You could argue that I should keep the individual stock out of it. But the rest of your argument is just straw man.

<comment><USER2> Here's the portfolio:

      55% Bonds (BND)
      15% ARM (ARMH)
      15% Oil 2X (UCO)
      15% Small-Cap Stocks (VB)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Long term, the price of oil is capped by the cost of converting coal to diesel. Last I saw, this price is around $70-100 per barrel. Coal to diesel is horrible for the environment (twice the CO2 emissions of burning regular petroleum), but the unfortunate fact of life is that both China and the US (two biggest energy consumers) have essentially infinite supplies of coal (1000+ years at current production levels). The US will not enact a Carbon tax in the near future because 1/2 of Americans believe stuff that is false (CO2 does not lead to global warming). The only thing preventing large scale coals to liquids development are the huge capital costs involved and the reluctance of banks to take the risk that the price of oil will drop below the magic number ($70 per barrel).

<comment><USER7> I read in New Scientist a couple of years ago that Peak Coal has happened as well. Original article behind paywall. Its referred to in wikipedia article here <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_coal>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> You're betting on oil going up two days after Argentina announced that it has certified 100 billion more barrels of oil as proven reserves, giving them more reserves than Saudi Arabia. And Brazil is getting ready to announce that they also have more reserves than Saudi Arabia. In other words, they've pushed the "run out of oil" date out by 10 years, and they're not the only ones certifying new reserves.

I think you've got "Black Swan" backwards. Everybody believes we're running out of oil, and it is priced accordingly. But there are lots of "black swan" type events that can come out of left field to either massively increase the supply of oil or decrease the demand.

You say that alternatives are "unlikely", but that's the whole point of the Black Swan book -- "unlikely" is much more likely than most people think it is.

IMO, the real "black swan" bet is against oil, not on it.

<comment><USER9>
      > two days after Argentina announced that it has certified 100 billion
      > more barrels of oil as proven reserves

I couldn't find the announcement.

<comment><USER10> because it's not Argentina but Venezuela

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> While I agree with his suggestion to just save yourself time, grief, and money by going with index funds rather than managed funds or stock picking, there are some nitpicks:

\- "[Bonds] are not 100% safe, as their value can plummet if the issuing institution goes bust. You can mitigate the risk by investing in bonds from a varied pool of 'reliable' institutions (such as governments)."

Bonds have many types of risk; the strength of the bond issuer is only one of them. The more common risk is interest rate risk, where you buy a bond that pays 1%, then interest rates rise to 3%, and you have to sell your bond at a loss to make it match the new 3% offerings. This affects ALL bonds, not just the "safe" ones. However, you can mitigate this risk by buying bonds with a shorter duration (ie ones that pay out within a couple years rather than a couple decades).

\- ETFs

ETFs are a useful counterpart to normal index funds, but keep in mind that they are not quite the same. For example, unless you're getting free trades at eg Vanguard or Wells Fargo, each time you buy or sell ETF shares will cost you a fee, so it's best to buy them only if you intend to keep them at least for several years. Another notable difference is that ETFs are repriced constantly throughout the trading day, whereas mutual funds are repriced only once a trading day at the closing bell.

\- Investing in Startups

If you already work in the tech industry, keep in mind that investing in your own industry ties both your income and your savings to that industry, so if the industry sinks, you're in danger of losing both simultaneously. This also applies to owning stock in your own company. Not saying don't do it, but just keep this in mind.

If you're really just looking for simple, sound information on where to reasonably store your savings, I recommend reading the Bogleheads Wiki at <http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page>, and/or a book named "The Random Walk Guide to Investing". If you have questions, bogleheads.org also has a very good forum.

Investing is actually quite simple, and is only made to look complicated by those who would rather you hand your money to them instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> Funny you should mention "The Random Walk Guide to Investing". Towards the end of that book the author mentions Scott Adams himself, and ends up basically saying "what he said". I think the book adds very little to what you can get from Scott's article (or mine), besides perhaps some tax advice and common sense stuff (pay off your credit card bills).

<comment><USER11> Given that Scott's article recommends a 100% stock allocation to everyone >= 10 years from retirement with half of that in emerging markets (which only represent a small percentage of the total stock market), I take his advice with a large grain of salt.

Keep in mind this is also the guy who thought ISDN would win the broadband wars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not sure having 55% invested in bonds after one of the biggest runups in bonds in recent history is a good idea. What happens when the Fed eventually stops buying Treasury bonds? What happens when states and municipalities start going under (currently states can't declare bankruptcy but if you think the US Government is going to let California, Illinois, New Jersey et. al go under, you're crazy)? I think bond holders will be forced to take a hair cut.

The OP also seems to not fully understand why precious metals and commodities have had just a big run up, namely the possible end to our current fiat monetary system. As long as the Fed continues to try to increase liquidity through Treasury buying, precious metals are likely to see increased demand.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point about bonds. I was thinking of splitting that 55%-60% between bonds and something even safer (money market?). I haven't found anything easy to invest in that currently gives returns above inflation. Any suggestions?

I do understand the risk to the monetary system. That's why I'm advocating diversifying into precious metals and commodities as well. That's something that seems rarely mentioned in investment advice, but ETFs make it relatively easy now.

<comment><USER11> If you're worried about interest rate risk, a short term bond fund will mitigate that risk. Also keep in mind that a 'market crash' for bonds is only a ~10-15% drop.

Wait a minute, you're worried that bonds have had a big run up in prices and are now overvalued, yet you want to get into precious metals?

<comment><USER12> I think the reasons for the bond run up and precious metals run up are different. At the risk of oversimplifying, the appreciation in bonds is due to a flight to safety and the US Fed instituting a pretty substantial bond buying program to keep interest rates down. Eventually those factors will correct and bonds will follow.

Precious metals have increased because investors no longer believe that paper currency is a reliable store of wealth along with a huge increase in the Fed balance sheet. Also, there is some evidence that large US banks have conspired to keep the metals market artificially constrained, especially the silver market. While precious metals have had a huge runup, the fundamentals are still strong for future appreciation (large Fed balance sheet for the foreseeable future, unstable monetary policies) and therefore, I don't see the risk to the downside in the metals.

<comment><USER13> > the appreciation in bonds is due to a flight to safety

> Precious metals have increased because investors no longer believe that > paper currency is a reliable store of wealth

Isn't that also a flight to safety, then? Not an identical variety of safety, but both seem to be driven by the same move-your-wealth-somewhere-safe sentiment that the financial crisis induced; some people picked U.S. treasuries, other people picked gold or copper or whatever. It's possible that one of those flights will be longer-lasting, though, if that's what you're predicting.

Gold prices in particular are also very dependent on central bank policy, because a large portion of the current value of gold is dependent on large quantities being held out of the market by central banks. It's close to fiat money in that sense, in that its value is dependent on central-bank policy propping it up. I'd be willing to grant that the policy risk is lower, though: while Federal Reserve action _could_ tank either treasury prices or gold prices, the likelihood of the Federal Reserve tanking treasury prices is probably higher. But if it decided to sell of any significant portion of its 9,000 tons of gold to raise revenue...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't know much about finance, but this article seems to beg an obvious question -

Sure, Wall Street emulates a random walk. Savvy investors will not try to pick stocks, but recognize the random nature of the market and invest accordingly. Fine.

But then he puts down the "self-proclaimed experts" who believe the market is not random, behave as if it is not, and would have you believe the same.

Isn't it only _because_ of those experts in competition with eachother that the market _can_ be seemingly random? The market approximates a perfect market only because of all the people/algorithms constantly eagle-eyed for an over or under-valued stock. Ironically, if everyone acted as if the market were random, the market would become less perfect, and it would then become stupid _not_ to look at the real factors behind stock prices.

Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER15> I think you're completely right. Market efficiency is the opposite of a self- fulfilling prophecy. The more people believe it, the less efficient the market.

A paper I read once: somebody had a market simulation with a bunch of agents looking at fundamentals. He got a nice smooth market that approximated the "real" prices pretty closely.

Then he changed it and made the agents attempt to predict each others' actions. The whole market turned chaotic, unpredictably swinging up and down.

<comment><USER14> Hm. I'm kind of surprised that that outcome was even in doubt. Any algorithm based on externals is going to be more stable than a self-referential algorithm, simply because self-referential algorithms are extremely prone to feedback loops.

<comment><USER15> I agree it's not too surprising. What's more surprising is that efficient- market theorists ignore the fact that so many traders in the market are using the self-referential algorithm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Don't confuse a great company with a great investment. The crux of the matter is to find stocks that are priced below their value. Which he argues professional analysts can't do. But somehow amateurs are supposed to be able to do this.

<comment><USER17> Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of people on HN have a better understanding of the IT market than pro stock traders.

<comment><USER10> I wouldn't bet on it. How many people on HN would recommend investing in MSFT? Close to none. And yet Microsoft is still unrivaled cash machine of tech world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This strategy of splitting into extremely low and high risk investments makes little sense to me.

Knowing that some sector is high volatility doesn't help you "prepare for black swan events". Okay, some of these stocks may go off like a rocket. But you don't know which one/ones. So you're still just getting whatever the expected value is, so you may as well just be buying the index (unless you have a particular utility curve that over-values a critical mass of money, eg to start a business).

Let's say you're gambling on rolls of a die. You pay $1 per roll, and on 6 you get $6, on 1-5 you get $1.50. How often should you guess 6? I hope you'd answer "never". Okay. Now ignore the payoffs, and just try to pick correctly as many rolls as possible. How often should you pick 6 for this goal? People want to say 1/6th here, when the answer is, again, "never".

I think this investment strategy falls into a similar trap. You know that there are these stocks that have a low probability of massive success. This feels like information, so you want to throw some money on them. But all the probability of success can tell you is what their expected value is, since you dont know which one will succeed, just as you dont know which roll of the die to bet 6 on.

</comment><comment><USER19> Really like the little logos in the text, next to the links. Hate the way chrome cold-loads them a good few hundred milliseconds before the fonts, and I just see a load of icons floating in white emptiness before the text appears.

</comment><comment><USER20> Despite some flaws, I like the overall investment thesis. Traditional portfolio theory would say that 70% "safe" stocks (say, blue chips) plus 30% bonds is about the same as 50% "risky" stocks (say, small caps or emerging markets) plus 50% bonds. Assume for the sake of argument that the math works out, and that the two portfolios have the same expected return.

But those portfolios are only equal if you believe the future will look a lot like the past. If you take black swans into account, the portfolio with the higher "safe" allocation is preferable. If Peak Oil or Nuke War or Famine drives stocks down by 90% for several decades, the 70/30 portfolio leaves you with 37% of your wealth, while the 50/50 portfolio leaves you with 55%.

My black swan portfolio would look like this:

* 25% bonds (US treasuries)

* 25% tips (inflation-protected bonds)

* 25% US small cap value stocks

* 25% international small cap value stocks

I'd consider adding in precious metals if they weren't so hot right now.

</comment><comment><USER21> _55% Bonds: This gives me a nice 3% per year and keeps me safe in case all the other stuff crashes._

It's not safe to assume bond markets can't crash. You may keep your 3% but total value can get cut if the interest rate rises.

I just checked their holdings of BND [<http://bit.ly/fSlaO3>], and they've got a good amount of money tied up in US Gov't Housing based GSE's. I don't think they will get zerohedged like many think, but there is extreme tail risk in these positions. You could also say the same about the bond holdings and if we get inflation and rates rise, it's not going to be that great of a bet, but then you're getting into macro trades, which clearly are useless since the market takes a random walk anyway.

</comment><comment><USER22> People tell me bond funds aren't so hot, and I believe them.

Bond funds perform very differently from actual bonds, because bond funds are continuously turning over bonds.

If you want an investment that has the characteristics of a bond, you should buy a bond.

</comment><comment><USER23> I didn't know you could invest in ARM stock. Some time ago I tried, but I couldn't find them, so I just assumed they are not publicly traded.

These are the kinds of problems you have as a complete noob in the stock market.

I still remember my first stock trading game, where I wanted to buy Sharp (the ones who build flatscreens - this was in the year 2000). I ended up "buying" a company called "Sharp" that produces furniture.

What is a good way to get around these problems?

<comment><USER24> Admittedly, it can be difficult to figure out a company symbol. But, I would expect you to be clued in before you bought it going through a due diligence processes.

1\. Does the balance sheet make sense? Do industry and manufacturing companies have a lot of money tied up in capital expenses?

2\. Most online finance websites show related companies. Does other technology and TV manufactures show up on the list? Do their competitors?

3\. Does the price seem right? Are you trying to buy a hot new stock for $20 or $30 dollars a share, when no recent split occurred? Is the price <$10?

As you research the company and dig in, I would expect SOMETHING to make you say, "that can't be right" along the way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The progression in your list of 'safety net' investments is 1) Cash 2) Savings accounts 3) Certificates of deposit 4) Bonds. That last step is a doozy. Considered this coursely, BND is perhaps appropriate. But it is hardly 'safe'. I think Taleb's idea of safe is more oriented toward catastrophic events. Think LTCM, Asian crisis, S&L, unregulated derivatives.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right. One of the talking points in my "discuss" section was "is BND safe enough"? I'm still looking for something better. Suggestions welcome.

<comment><USER26> Well, T-Bills, of course. Short term, so that you don't get stuck when interest rates rise. TIPS are another thought.

You're dismissing lots of conservative/safe alternatives because they don't yield much. But that's today. Next year, 5 years, 20 years, who knows? Today, maybe the best thing is to sit back and wait for better conditions, versus take on risk.

Overall, I thought your discussion of "why invest" was too brief. You don't actually need to invest/gamble your money. Just save it (T-Bills, etc) and work to make enough.

If you've got a pile, why invest? What's the possible use of doubling the size of your pile? Can't buy any more stuff. But if you lose half your pile, it might seriously hurt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > In the scenario that I envision, where oil prices start to go up, and > finally everybody agrees they will keep going up, futures dated further in > the… future will be more expensive. Each time the fund has to roll over, it > has to pay extra to switch to futurer futures. These costs can significantly > eat at your returns.

No kidding. And the worst part is the roll-over is predictable enough that hedge funds can money-pump your fund. Contango and 'pre-rolling' are major problems for these funds: [http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_31/b41890509...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_31/b4189050970461.htm)

</comment><comment><USER28> The writer confuses buying bonds with trading in bonds. When you buy a bond, you are guaranteed a fixed percentage rate if you hold it to maturity. When you trade in bonds, you will discover that the bond market can be just as volatile as the stock market.

He also misunderstands Taleb's advice, at least as I understand it, about how to use the small percentage of your money you set aside for gambling. In short, you don't want to bet on probabilities of success, you want to bet against the probability that trees will grow to the sky. Or put another way, you want to be in a position to profit when all around you are losing their shirts.

</comment><comment><USER29> I agree with the impulse to split stocks/bonds about equally: [http://blog.ometer.com/2010/11/10/take-risks-in-life-for- sav...](http://blog.ometer.com/2010/11/10/take-risks-in-life-for-savings- choose-a-balanced-fund/)

But, the 2x leveraged fund is a Bad Idea. These just don't make sense or do what you think beyond the 1-day horizon. If you want a long-term leveraged bet on oil, one better way is to buy a long-term call option ("LEAP") on an ETF. That will work a lot better than the 2x fund. Not saying you really want a long-term levered bet on oil, but if you did, the option is a better approach.

</comment><comment><USER30> That's a really hideous portfolio assembled from two public figures not known for individual investing. Taleb is a great writer and thinker, but he's a trader and the guy in the article says specifically he's a passive investor. Scott Adams is an interesting guy and index funds are a good idea, but 50% US/ 50% emerging equities is a really undiversified portfolio for an individual. I think he should read a bit more about investing from an individual investor perspective. I'd start with William Bernstein's brilliant "The Four Pillars of Investing".

</comment><comment><USER31> You are contradicting yourself. You start by saying that fund managers and stock pickers do no better than random (and you are right), but then go ahead and start picking stocks and funds!

</comment><comment><USER32> Investing in commodities futures gives me the willies, but if you're going that route anyway, also look into rare earth metals (or anything that goes into solid-state electronics besides silicon and copper, really) and phosphorus.

On the chance that we never move over to Thorium-fueled nuclear reactors, Uranium futures might be interesting as well. I'd really, really hate to have to take delivery of that stuff, though. >_<

</comment><comment><USER33> A good article, but personally I'm concerned that your "safe picks" such as government bonds/ sovereign debt might be exactly the kind of black swan Taleb is talking about. He doesn't seem to be such a fan on US monetary policy: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyHnPkXZYNI>

</comment><comment><USER34> BND is not really that safe. I've owned it for the past 2 years or so. There are occasional price swings (likely caused by interest rate speculation, but not sure) that can knock out months of dividend income gains. I would say that more diversity than just BND is needed for the bonds allocation.

</comment><comment><USER35> In my opinion, Fixed income investments like Bonds & CDs are incredibly risky in our current economic climate. If interest rates rise or inflation increases then these investments can loose a great deal of their value. Also there is always a risk of default.

</comment><comment><USER36> Be wary of any advice to buy ARMH merely on the fact that ARM chips are widely used.

ARMH doesn't make money on the chips, but the designs - take a look at their business model before you decide that is something that will cause the price to grow significantly long term.

</comment><comment><USER17> For those of us who are still novice at investing and finance, I've started a Ask HN here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2138179>

</comment><comment><USER37> The concept behind the article is good, but his actual investment portfolio is pretty questionable.

Basically, there are 5 main factors you need to be aware of in investing: 1) Compound interest: An investment making small gains over a long period of time will do amazingly well. Thus, start saving early, and far in advance of any expected draws. 2) Diversification: I was going to say mean-reversion on individual stocks, or portfolios reducing risk, but I'm not sure what the dominant factor really is. Suffice it to say, all eggs in one basket bad, and there are a lot of logical falacies borne of trying to predict the future. 3) Stacked deck; not a level playing field: There is one consistent winner in any casino: the house. If you're investing as if it's betting, the winners will be those charging you to play (commissions, spreads) and better-informed counterparties. You want minimal fees, and minimal number of transactions, and to participate in big, liquid markets with openly displayed prices. 4) Psychological costs of investing: this isn't your job. In order to hedge against wild swings, you need a very large amount of money relative to the size of your investments, and if you're spending your time and energy managing investments, you're probably taking away from either making money through your profession or enjoying life. 5) Don't leave money on the table: take advantage of any 401k matching, etc. you can, even if you just put money into cash or treasuries. This is literally free money.

In the end, a strategy which encourages you to buy ARMH because the iPhone is cool is probably suboptimal for most investors.

What I want in my investing is for it to be relatively automatic, well balanced, and low stress. While I do make individual stock purchases sometimes (BP, or a list of companies I really like and would love to buy on dips when P/E is proper), I generally believe in investing primarily in low-fee no-load mutual funds. The key is that fees (expense ratio) are as low as possible, and that the overall mix of funds gives you the best asset allocation. Hint: most ETFs actually are really expensive relative to the underlying assets; the premium for exchange-traded liquidity is huge. Combine that with buy and hold/compounding and the low fees are a big win. Another way to save is to use tax-advantaged accounts like roth or regular 401k or IRA to hold investment assets.

You can worry about things at the level of "how much risk do I want", "how much can I afford to save each month", and then just plug things into relatively standard portfolios.

I try to have this low-risk investment portfolio, coupled (as Taleb suggests) with a high-risk high-return slice (my startup, and hopefully at some point angel investments and LP status in some great funds). I do agree with him that the middle ground of risk is a really bad place to be; go with safety (in terms of diversification across a bunch of safe assets) and then focus your risk in areas where you have expertise and insight.

It's a shame most of the "target retirement date" mutual funds are actually high expense and kind of scammy; in theory they would be ideal.

</comment><comment><USER38> This is just some guy's speculation. So you read The Black Swan. Do you know how financial professionals refer to NT? "The Emperor of Platitudistan."

</comment><comment><USER39> Heh ARMH did ok today. Wonder if this article was the reason? Currently up 3%. I predict a sell-off tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER40> It was eery reading that article:the author has made very similar investment decisions that I have.

</comment><comment><USER41> Why such low interest rates for savings? In Australia you should expect 6 or 6.5%

<comment><USER42> The US Reserve Bank currently has a target cash rate of 0-0.25%, whereas the RBA has it set to 4.25%. Correspondingly, the interest rates on bank bonds and savings accounts are much lower in the US than Australia.

This difference is also one of the reasons for the high value of the Australian dollar compared to the USD.

While it might seem obvious that the OP should just open a foreign savings account, the practical hassles associated with that and the risk of loss due to foreign exchange probably make it less worthwhile than investing in companies that have some aspect of their growth tied to the Australian economy.

<comment><USER43> As a tangential note, investing in Australian index funds (as I do) is probably not a totally wise move. It's a massively concentrated market.

Just 10 companies (the 4 big banks, the 3 biggest miners, Wesfarmers, Woolworths, Telstra) form the majority of the capitalisation of ASX indices.

<comment><USER44> So the ASX is mostly those big companies, but what about the other index funds, such as the small caps?

That and I speculate that investing in Australian index funds would be similar to investing in China more directly, given how tightly coupled the economies seem to be getting.

<comment><USER43> > So the ASX is mostly those big companies, but what about the other index > funds, such as the small caps?

If you're prepared for the low liquidity and high risk, be my guest.

> That and I speculate that investing in Australian index funds would be > similar to investing in China more directly, given how tightly coupled the > economies seem to be getting.

It is if you invest in Rio Tinto and BHP. The main tradeoff is that the Australian market is regulated by officials are probably less likely to be corrupt. Plus, if you're not Australian, a different currency risk profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Taleb also advocates increasing leveraged position through the use of options.

</comment><comment><USER46> So I think the author could do with reading "The long and the short of it" by John Kay. Might help him understand how NNT did what he did.

The extra takeaway is that portfolio construction should be about finding investments that will probably all in the long term give an above inflation return (else what's the point) but, and this is the key. The investments should have low (ideally negative) correlation.

This means you look carefully at the underlying wealth generating machine you plan on investing in to check it's sound, and you consider scenarios to check you're actually diverse. A common strategy is to invest largely in an index of blue chips and have a risky pool of small caps. This hardly helps you at all since a recession is bad for both (and you're most likely to lose your job and need your savings when they're low).

So what does that give us:

* 55% short term US Gov Bonds

* 15% US Short term small caps

* 15% Precious metal ETF

* 15% Oil ETF.

First up, fundamentals - the USG is currently upto it's eyeballs in debt with no obvious political will to cut spending and raise taxes. The debt is all USD denominated so they may well inflate, but they could also default - either way bad for us. You might say 'but my liabilities are all in USD!' but personally if the standard of living in my country drops everyone around me being poor too is going to be scant comfort.

US short term small caps, the US has very pro business labour laws and taxes, it's got lots of well educated workers, whilst there has been a big run up in stocks lately (hello there QE) we're not trying to time the market and can clearly see where the fundamental wealth is generated.

Precious metal ETF - This ETF holds physical gold, silver, platinum and palladium in London and Zurich under custody of JP Morgan it charges a .6% fee. Precious metals have been a store of value for ages. Whilst there's been a big run up lately we're basically betting on bad news and there's obviously still the potential for more bad news. However since we don't hold it ourself we're hoping for bad but not catastrophic news.

Oil ETF - this ones based on short term oil futures and run by DB proshares. It seems to track oil better than some others although it will naturally under-perform the underlying commodity. Oil gets used everywhere. However simply holding oil is not owning a productive asset, this is a bet on future oil shortage not an investment. Personally I agree that shortages and inflation are likely to drive the price of oil higher but it's still a bet.

So that's individual fundamentals, now we look at correlation of these 4 assets. With 55% in a single bond fund any problem with that investment is very bad news. If the fund suffers from fraud, or some of the bonds default (or look like defaulting) you'll lose a large chunk of your savings.

Then we have exposure to the US. A significant slowdown in US economic activity is bad for the price of oil, bad for US taxes (and thus bond default chances) and very bad for US stocks. 85% of the portfolio could get creamed in this scenario. Theoretically GLTR could help us here but we also have to worry in this scenario if JP Morgan will survive. Even if they do other non-physical gold ETFs may not and will our ETF suddenly be under-priced due to perceived risk?

Whilst the concepts in the article are useful, as others have pointed out the portfolio seems to be an excellent example of how smart people can get tripped up in this environment.

</comment><comment><USER47> Stock picking does work. You just have to pick stocks wisely. Looking at the recommendations of "financial experts" is not stock picking. What is the basis of these so-called "experts"? The fact that they are stock salesman. Do you let a used car dealer advise you on which used car to buy? OR do you do your own research?

To further that analogy, this article is saying that because used car salesmen advise you to buy cars that benefit them more than you, you should just give up on picking a car and instead just drive whatever car you're assigned by some entity made up of used car salesman! You may be driving a clunker, but at least you didn't have to think about it.

Stock picking works. And not just for Warren Buffett. Using someone else's "hot tip" is not stock picking. But analyzing the economics of the situation, both macro and micro, and the particulars of a given company will let you predict the return you'll get from a given company.

You know how to know whether an investment program is rational or not? If it considers prices. A given stock may be a fantastic company, but it may be over priced.

When you see people talking completely independant of any price analysis (as they do in this article and the comments) they are essentially debating on whether red or black is going to come up on the roulette wheel. If you don't have the price of the asset as a core feature of any analysis you're just gambling.

Commodities are probably the best investment going right now, and for one simple reason: we are in the age of inflation. So, not only will their prices be going up because of inflation, but because people will be piling into them to avoid inflation.

Don't take my word on it, though. This is not a hot tip. Learn enough economics to be able to analyze the world.

Don't just buy into an investment ideology.</comment>


Proposed solution to Microsoft's game licensing policies - <AUTHOR> http://www.tonicodes.net/blog/proposed-solution-to-microsofts-game-licensing-policies/

<comment><USER2> "In worst case your game will be played on two consoles"

While you and I might think this is acceptable, I don't expect video game publishers would be happy if Microsoft used this compromise.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, but giving people something and later taking their money when they are hooked is a proven strategy.</comment></comment>


Write SQL in your JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lalitkapoor/js-sql

<comment><USER2> Where is the SQL being executed? Where is the database?

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't execute unless you decide to execute it. It is building the sql string and giving that back to you. You can use any library that'll take sql to execute it against a connection.

I got some great feedback today - it seems that ES6 might have some good support for doing something like this. see the following:

[https://github.com/lalitkapoor/js- sql/issues/2#issuecomment-...](https://github.com/lalitkapoor/js- sql/issues/2#issuecomment-41637663)

[http://www.nczonline.net/blog/2012/08/01/a-critical- review-o...](http://www.nczonline.net/blog/2012/08/01/a-critical-review-of- ecmascript-6-quasi-literals/)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would love to get some feedback. Thanks!</comment>


How Facebook is damaging freedom of expression in Vietnam - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/10/02/how-facebook-is-damaging-freedom-of-expression-in-vietnam/ <comment><USER2> I think there is an interesting parallel between the actions of Facebook and the other tech giants in developing countries, and the actions of European companies / governments in the Colonial Era. It's certainly interesting to watch the outcomes of an entity motivated by a mix of a misguided desire to "help" and profit.</comment>


Happy Prime Year - <AUTHOR> http://coding.pressbin.com/69/Happy-prime-year/

<comment><USER2> 2011 is also the sum of 11 CONSECUTIVE prime numbers: 2011=157+163+167+173+179+181+191+193+197+199+211 <http://twitter.com/#!/mathematicsprof>

</comment><comment><USER3> 2011 is a Sexy Prime[1] too.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexy_prime>

<comment><USER4> How? A sexy prime seems to be a pair of prime numbers, not one number.

2011 is, like 2017, a prime number. Therefore (2011, 2017) is a sexy prime, or a pair of prime numbers where one is larger than the other by 6.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The prime years in the 21st century and the differences of their differences...of their differences.

2003 2011 2017 2027 2029 2039 2053 2063 2069 2081 2083 2087 2089 2099

8 6 10 2 10 14 10 6 12 2 4 2 10

2 4 8 8 4 4 4 6 10 2 2 8

2 4 0 4 0 0 2 4 8 0 6

2 4 4 4 0 2 2 4 8 6

2 0 0 4 2 0 2 4 2

2 0 4 2 2 2 2 2

2 4 2 0 0 0 0

2 2 2 0 0 0

0 0 2 0 0

0 2 2 0

2 0 2

2 2

0

This does not always result in 0 at the end. For example, the differences of the first eight primes:

1 2 2 4 2 4 2

1 0 2 2 2 2

1 2 0 0 0

1 2 0 0

1 2 0

1 2

1

Here is what it looks like with better formatting: <http://i.imgur.com/BuPij.png>

<comment><USER6> Is there some interesting result in number theory that led you to take the absolute value of the differences?

<comment><USER5> I wish I could say I knew of some interesting result, but I did it only out of fascination. However, if you look closely at the two triangles, you can see some interesting pattens. For example, they each have a triangle of 0's on the right side of them, bordered by 2's. I think I remember reading about this occurrence (which I'm pretty sure appears in more places than just these two triangles I happened to choose), but I can't seem to remember where.

4 2 2 2 2 2

2 0 0 0 0

2 0 0 0

2 0 0

2 0

0 2 2 2 2

2 0 0 0

2 0 0

2 0

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 2/2/2011 is a prime number day, since 222011 is a prime ;)

</comment><comment><USER8> Today's date also happens to be 1/1/11.

<comment><USER9> You wrote it wrong, the date doesn't come first, it is 1/1/11.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Happy Full nibble day. 255

<comment><USER9> nibble would max at 15, byte is 255. But good thinking. :)

<comment><USER10> Haha yeah, I'm a little drunk-over.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Silicon Valley's Leading Startup Incubator Wants to Research Basic Income - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcoexist.com/3056510/why-silicon-valleys-leading-startup-incubator-wants-to-research-basic-income <comment><USER2> The last paragraph was especially of interest to me. I had heard of the experiment in Finland and the vote in Switzerland but not the Dutch experiments.

Most people I know haven't heard of Basic Income, let alone are convinced by it. The only way this can become a reality is through experiments like these. It's also the only way many of us can go from wishful thinkers to advocates with facts.

These are exciting times for proponents of Basic Income.</comment>


Fled the country to escape student debt - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/25/they-fled-the-country-to-escape-their-student-debt.html <comment><USER2> Boingboing adds some trenchant observations on this:

 _[T]his is effectively permanent exile. Once you stop paying your student loan, your lenders get to add penalties and compound interest on the penalties, then add more penalties and compound even more interest. Walk away from those debts and they will balloon to the point where you can never pay them back -- and since student debt is the only debt you can 't effectively escape through bankruptcy (it's also the only debt that can be taken out of your Social Security), turning your back on student debt means never reestablishing residence or holding assets in the US or any country that could be reached through a treaty arrangement._

[https://boingboing.net/2019/05/27/educative- extractavism.htm...](https://boingboing.net/2019/05/27/educative- extractavism.html)

Also, Elisabeth Warren's proposal for a student loan debt jubilee:

[https://boingboing.net/2019/04/22/scholars- jubilee.html](https://boingboing.net/2019/04/22/scholars-jubilee.html)</comment>


Why it's time to dump the Web 2.0 sobriquet once and for all - <AUTHOR> http://www.news.com/8301-10787_3-9929415-60.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

<comment><USER2> > Let's be frank: The world does not need another social news aggregator or > online scheduling assistant.

Let's be frank: The world does not need another person telling us what the world does not need.

</comment><comment><USER3> Web 4.0 Is For Wankers:<http://tinyurl.com/6ezphw>

Sorry, I couldn't resist. I'm tired of people trying to assign version numbers to the web. Particularly when it's vaporware.</comment>


Mind mapping in your browser (SVG and VML so no plugins) - <AUTHOR> http://wisemapping.com/c/home.htm

<comment><USER2> This seems like it would be hell for anything more complicated than a simple presentation. As someone who has multiple mindaps with several thousand nodes, often containing notes on a dozen or so books on a given topic, this just isn't a realistic option. Especially considering that the FreeMind .9b16 already does a very good job at exporting to the web, and doesn't lag even on my PowerBook G4.

I could see maybe using it to create a short Python syntax cheat sheet or something to share with friends, but that's about it.</comment>


Pock: Display macOS Dock in Touch Bar - <AUTHOR> https://pock.dev <comment><AUTHOR> This is what Touch Bar should have been from the beginning IMO. I've been on the fence to upgrade my 2012 MBP. I've been concerned about buying into the Touch Bar hardware when it seems like it is not coming to any other Macs.

Why should I devote time to learning Touch Bar and trying to find ways to integrate it with my workflow when keyboard shortcuts are more than enough—and probably better? What happens when I sit down at my iMac where I spend >50% of my time?

Pock. has the answer. Turn the Touch Bar into the Mac Dock. Full screen everything and still have quick visuals on app notifications. Don't have to command-tabtabtabtab to get to a different open app—just tap it on the dock in Touch Bar. It's the perfect solution to an actual problem—give me more space on a small screen without sacrificing any of the experience.

<comment><USER2> _I 've been concerned about buying into the Touch Bar hardware when it seems like it is not coming to any other Macs._

If Apple was going to try and open a new front on the "hearts and minds of Touch Bar skeptics" war then the Mac Pro reveal at WWDC a few weeks ago would have been the time to do it, that they didn't makes me think it's not long for this world. Not because the Mac Pro sales would have been hampered by it, if a workstation class modular PC running macOS was what you have been waiting for then wrapping the cost of a Touch Bar keyboard wouldn't be a make or break price modifier (and you could always swap out keyboards later if you hate it).

If the MBP is a quasi-halo product (expensive but incredibly ubiquitous) and the Touch bar isn't coming to the Mac Pro which is a true halo product I don't think you'll see it ever get pushed to any other product category either.

<comment><USER3> If memory serves, the logic to drive the Touch Bar is something that came from the Watch, which also included the Secure Enclave and other features that were more mobile than desktop. If that was true, then you can't trust the USB cable alone (or Bluetooth) to maintain the trust that circuit needs, and a keyboard with a Touch Bar would require a new circuit or at least design change to only do the display part, not the rest. It makes sense they won't put it in standalone keyboards just yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Coincidentally I also just upgraded my personal laptop from a 2012 retina MacBook Pro to the 2019 i9 MacBook Pro!

Long story short I think the touchbar is totally useless. I have it set to emulate regular function keys right now (expose, launchpad etc)

However everything else is top notch and well worth it. The touchid is fantastic, and you will immediately enjoy the difference. Screen is amazing, 8 cores is super nice. Also I might be in the minority but I actually prefer the feel of the keyboard vs the previous unibody keys.

Touchbar is a dud but the 2019 version is well worth it otherwise imho.

<comment><USER5> > Also I might be in the minority but I actually prefer the feel of the > keyboard vs the previous unibody keys.

It is not the feel of the keyboard that is "hated" \- it's the reliability (the feel of the keyboard AFTER it stops being new and starts being... the 2016+ rMBP butterfly keyboard).

I wonder if the 2019 keyboard is fixed, but I'm VERY sceptical.

<comment><USER6> There are people who hate the key feel too. I think it's people who type more forcefully; the new keyboards have a nice clicky feel with a low travel distance, but they require a light touch or you're basically slamming your fingers into a solid object.

I don't know _why_ people type like that, but they do. I wonder if there's any correlation with people who stomp their feet when they walk. It's like they never picked up on the fact that you can dial back your own movement's impact instead of just smashing into stuff and letting it stop you.

<comment><USER7> I think your analogy is a major reach, but just to run with it:

That reminds me of catlike movement (very graceful, very limited impact and noise) versus doglike (lots of movement and noise, bouncing up and down).

And as it turns out, dogs use much less energy walking than cats do. Loud "doglike" typing isn't necessarily a sign of inexperience, it's actually energy-efficient and comfortable.

I've never had RSI but I seriously fear it suddenly striking whenever I have to use one of those super-flat Apple keyboards.

Or along similar lines: most if not all piano/keyboard players (I'm fairly sure, anyway) prefer weighted keys. Why do you think that is? It's not just so you can play loudly or softly; a digital piano can be pressure-sensitive without having a weighted response.

<comment><USER8> Not the person you're replying to.

But how would forceful typing be more energy efficient? You press harder (more muscle activation), keys travel longer (more muscle activation), and you have to move your fingers back "up" again.

Btw. the reason pianists want weighted keys is mostly because it mimics acoustic pianos. If you practice on non weighted keys and play on a piano, you would tire your fingers very quickly. Apart from that major reason, the weight gives a tactile feedback when playing that is arguably necessary to play beyond what you learn the first few years. Without it going back and forth between soft and loud requires an entirely different feedback mechanism.

But this does not IMO translate to keyboards. You're interested in the tactile feedback of the "click" that signals that the press has been registered.

<comment><USER6> I think the argument is that you spend energy to start your fingers moving and then you spend _more_ energy to make them stop. But at least the way I type, what I think I'm doing is expending as much energy as needed to make the key bottom out, and no more energy than that.

I can buy the extra energy cost for walking because gravity is putting some force on there and you'd expend energy to counterbalance it versus just letting the ground push back.

But your fingers have exactly as much force as you put behind them yourself, so I don't know what's up with the finger-slammers. They totally exist though.

I was probably reaching with the foot-stompers comparison. Seems like a similar result, but the causes may well be unrelated.

<comment><USER7> I think what I'm saying is, to try to use your terms: small precise movements can be more tiring than bigger looser movements, because they require strong muscular control.

And, I'd argue, keyboards with deeper travel require less precise movements. You can rest your fingers on the keys so you know where you are, and it takes a comfortable longish movement to press a key rather than a tiny precise movement.

<comment><USER8> If we ignore the Apple keyboard for a moment, with DIY mechanical keyboards, you can customize travel length, travel resistance, and click. Getting the force and travel length correct, for me at least, mean I spend significantly less energy typing. My fingers and lower arms are tired if I'm using a regular keyboard for an hour.

Perhaps the optimum is not either extreme. Not an Apple like keyboard with almost zero travel, and not a keyboard from the 5$ bin, but something in between. And it's not the same for everyone.

<comment><USER7> Yes, that sounds right.

Personally, I quickly got used to Apple's first "chiclet" laptop keyboards, which had pretty low travel, and actually enjoyed them. But I really have a very hard time with the latest generation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not a lawyer, but I would consider revisiting your icon[0]. It looks identical to Patreon's[1] with a period/full-stop. On a technical note, this looks pretty cool and may have helped me hold off on ditching my mac products if I knew about it sooner!

[0] [https://pock.dev/assets/img/brand/pock_logo_w.png](https://pock.dev/assets/img/brand/pock_logo_w.png)

[1] [https://c5.patreon.com/external/logo/guidelines/icon_color_v...](https://c5.patreon.com/external/logo/guidelines/icon_color_variations.jpg)

<comment><USER10> This is also the first thing I noticed and regardless of it not being related to the software itself it is a red flag. Ironically the favicon on the page is sufficiently different and wouldn't be mistaken for Patreon's logo, at least in my opinion.

<comment><USER11> A red flag for what? For not properly looking up if a design already exists?

<comment><USER10> A red flag for dishonesty, if you want a broader answer — it is entirely possible that the author hasn't indeed seen Patreon before, but as it is, Patreon is a very widely known company and it looks like a rip-off, even if it isn't. Much in the same vain you could make an apple with a bite your logo, but it would look like you're just a copycat.

<comment><USER11> I've supported multiple Patreon campaigns, and i didn't recognise this logo. It's not featured prominently on their homepage and mailings. Calling something that looks like a simple oversight 'a red flag for dishonesty' sounds a bit unfair to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> IMO cmd+tab is far superior since it requires less movement from the rest position. I can navigate contexts extremely efficiently. I also use cmd+~ a lot for in-app window switching.

I do like the idea of having the touch-bar as a notification center though, that would be pretty helpful.

I have my Macbook on a stand with an external keyboard. Besides being ergonomically better like that, I also missed the physical esc button way too much and would often accidentally hit the touch escape with my left pinky. Being a touch button all you need to do is graze it and ESCAPE!!1

<comment><USER13> I find that cmd+tab switching beyond 2 or 3 applications is not "superior" as it requires more recall of state than should be necessary. I've started using Alfred more often to switch to specific apps so that it doesn't matter where I'm coming "from" to get where I want to go "to."

I also use Karibiner to switch the capslock key to "escape when pressed once" and "ctrl" when used in combination with any other key. Completely agree that a missing escape key was a stupid design decision.

<comment><USER14> Swipe up on the trackpad and just pick your window. Better than alt-tabbing all over the place.

<comment> 52-6F-62 I use this _all_ of the time. I love the trackpad workflow. Now—if you are using an external keyboard and don't have the magic trackpad, then it's a larger PITA.

I have bound those commands to keys as well. So in my case I can swap workspaces by using CTRL+<arrow> and get that same view with CTRL+UP (but then still have to switch to mouse to select. I bought the apple trackpad recently because I prefer it that much—being able to do this actions one-handed. That said I'm also testing an ergonomic mouse so I lose some of that again—as I'm sure some of the case is for a lot of people. Hence all these other workarounds.

<comment><USER15> I use USB overdrive to bind the swipe up motion to one of the extra buttons on my mouse. I'm using a basic wireless ergonomic mouse. I have a magic trackpad but I absolutely hate it compared to a mouse.

<comment> 52-6F-62 I'll check that out—thanks.

That said I love the magic trackpad already. To each their own!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The touch bar doesn't give you the ability to touch it without click like a key. It also replaces all the f keys and the escape key.

It is by far the worst thing made when working say on the bus. There is no world in which the touch bar is good in any way. There are zero benefits to it. On two years with this monstrosity I have regretted having it. And now I am seriously considering moving to windows with the new Linux subsystem.

<comment><USER5> WSL is great and I like my Surface Pro. It's not ready for "real" work yet IMO, but it's improving noticeably every update.

WSL2 is supposed to be a great improvement again.

The Surface hardware is also nice. The only downside is the mediocre touchpad, but I can live with that.

[https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=windows-...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=windows-10-wsl2&num=2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've been using this for the last two months on my work machine and really like it. The first week I used this machine the touch bar was an irritating distraction; then I removed everything except esc, sleep, mute, and the brightness/volume sliders. Pock makes the touch bar useful, especially the red dots for notifications.

My Pock settings: refresh every 30s, uncheck "hide control strip" and "hide persistent items" so I can put often-used folders in the dock to see them on the touch bar. Check "hide finder", "hide trash", and "launch at login". (On this last: once or twice an update or wake has left me with the default touch bar and I've had to manually restart Pock.)

My Dock settings: shrink the size down, move it to the left or right, uncheck "minimize windows into application items", check "automatically show and hide the Dock", uncheck "show recent applications in Dock". Unfortunately there is still no way to entirely remove the Dock.

</comment><comment><USER18> I used to love the mac keyboard. Of any non Apple laptop it was superior... until I tried out a ThinkPad just over a year ago. I honestly don't think I could own anything other than a ThinkPad from now on for the keyboard alone.

<comment><USER19> Unfortunately ThinkPad trackpads aren't nearly as good as MacBook trackpads.

<comment><USER20> REAL Thinkpad users will only ever use the little red stick and disable the trackpad (just joking). But it's worth a try, takes a couple days to get used to first.

<comment><USER21> Thinkpad user here, on Linux, with disabled trackpad. Vim and i3 make it almost useless

<comment><USER20> Positive side-effect of a disabled trackpad, everyone trying to show you something on your Thinkpad by taking command will quickly stop it once they have no control over the mouse.

<comment><USER22> They'd also probably stop when they saw you were running i3 and couldn't figure out how to pull up a web browser.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'd recommend BetterTouchTool and things like finger swipes for volume up/down and brightness up/down and showing things like Spotify. Originally started with Vas3k preset but eventually replaced things with the built in widgets and gestures

<comment><USER24> My favorite BTT mapping: 3 finger click (touchpad and/or magic mouse) generates a middle click event.

I have no idea how people open and close browser tabs without this, since browsers have great middle click response but Apple pointing devices don't natively generate such clicks.

<comment><USER25> I also love BTT, but opening/closing tabs is _much_ faster using ⌘-T and ⌘-W.

<comment><USER24> I meant opening a link, not a blank tab. And closing any tab, not necessarily the focused tab.

I should have specified, but I assumed I implied it as this is what the existing browser middle click support achieves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Notice how all these have an esc key.

That should have been a hardware key!

A message from the Vim gang.

<comment><USER27> As a member of the Vim gang, I have to say that using caps-lock is better anyway and MacOS has a built-in setting for it now, so go and fix that right away.

That said, I had a MBP with touch bar for half a year and even though I was quite excited when they announced it, I hated it. I will not buy another laptop with that thing on it.

<comment><USER28> I've been using caps lock as my control key for too long to make this leap. :-(

<comment><USER29> Karabiner Elements has this template where caps lock can behave as an esc key if you tap it, and a ctrl key if you hold it down.

<comment><USER30> Thanks! That sounds exactly like what I need, and I'm already using Karabiner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I was skeptical then I installed it and I can't believe MacOS doesn't ship with this! It's actually making the bar useful.

One bug I noticed is you can get in a <esc> <esc> situation, with twice the button. But since you miss <esc> button all the time, why not having it twice; or more?

</comment><comment><USER32> This makes sense

There's extra vertical space on the lower half of a MacBook, and the dock wastes vertical space on the screen

I normally put the dock on the side, but putting it above the keyboard works too

Now if only the damn keyboard had a proper escape key. Who signed off on that. Honestly.

<comment><USER33> It's just mislabeled as Caps Lock and has bad default behavior. A quick visit to Preferences can sort you out.

<comment><USER34> I will say, Apple at least did a good job making the remap (Caps to Esc) a really easy preferences change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I kind of like the Touch Bar.

It's hackable, programmable, and versatile. I have never used F keys and making Caps Lock the new Escape key works better for me anyway since I have small hands.

How can you not like having Lemmings in your Touch Bar? [0]

I have no problems with the keyboard (my favorite is actually the PowerBook Pro Aluminum Keyboard), but it being basically the only moving part and arguably gets the most use of any component on the computer, it would be nice if it was user replaceable (the battery too, but ...). I'd like to always have a spare around or the ability to take it out and every once in a while get any dirt or whatever can get in under the keys out.

[0] [https://github.com/erikolsson/Touch-Bar- Lemmings](https://github.com/erikolsson/Touch-Bar-Lemmings)

</comment><comment><USER14> This is neat. However, I use the dock for dragging/dropping so it doesn't help me.

I detest the TouchBar and think it's one of the worst ideas to come out of Apple in a long time. I'm waiting for them to end this joke.

<comment><USER36> It's also quite an expensive joke that consumers pay for. Hundreds of dollars equivalent extra in price for this "feature."

<comment><USER37> The non-touchbar version has 2 fewer USB-C ports inexplicably. So they're paying for the touchbar and 2 extra ports, all in all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I use MTMR[1], My TouchBar My Rules. Great JSON-based customization. Built in Dock applet included (a great pomodoro applet as well, my fav).

The sample presets are kind of cluttered, but removing some of the items and making others was ultra simple. If you know AppleScript you can pretty much any button.

[1] [https://github.com/Toxblh/MTMR/](https://github.com/Toxblh/MTMR/)

<comment><USER39> Aw man, this looks even cooler! I fear that the momentum has swayed to Pock though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> If you want to have Esc/Fn keys back on models with touch bar, buy one of those keyboard covers for non-touchbar 13" model, glue some little/low pieces of gum under Esc/Fn keys on the cover and then just place over the keyboard/touch bar. You'll have some tactile feedback and a lower chance of accidentally executing some function you didn't need. You can also glue gorilla glass strip on top of touch bar to reduce sensitivity/number of unwanted touches.

Frankly, I am not sure why there is no "glueable" 3rd party Esc/Fn rubber membrane over touch bar with USB-C output produced by anyone to address this major design flaw for high-performance Apple devices...

</comment><comment><USER41> i would recommend to take a look at [https://goldenchaos.net/goldenchaos- btt.html](https://goldenchaos.net/goldenchaos-btt.html) too.

it has the list of open apps and more (and it's highly configurable). it's not exactly the dock, though, but i find it more useful.

it needs better touch tool ([https://folivora.ai](https://folivora.ai)), but that's quite cheap for how much it offers.

<comment><USER42> I was hoping someone would recommend Better Touch Tool. It introduces a _ton_ of customization and functionality to the Touch Bar, including 'live' buttons that I use to show things like outside temperature and (until it got depressing) current Bitcoin price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Great idea.

A related tool I highly, highly recommend is BetterTouchTool - you can _completely_ customize your Touch Bar to show and do almost anything you want it to do, based on the app context you're in. You can do what this does but 100 other things as well.

It's made the Touch Bar actually worth it for me.

</comment><comment><USER44> This is pretty great. Only I wish it only showed when I clicked on the desktop (Since Finder does nothing else with the TouchBar) or swipe up from the bottom. Parallels actually does this same thing (minus swiping) for the task bar in Windows guests but switches to app specific bars when you open Office or a browser. I'm in the camp that finds the TouchBar really awesome. Never used function keys (except F5) but I use the TouchBar all the time in IntelliJ, iTunes, Word/Excel and it's great in PowerPoint when scrolling to just the slide you want.

I also love the clicky feel of the keyboard so maybe I'm just special...

</comment><comment><USER45> Maybe credits to [https://github.com/billziss- gh/EnergyBar](https://github.com/billziss-gh/EnergyBar) ?

</comment><comment><USER46> Interesting idea, but I've found that making my own custom _static_ touchbar has been the most useful way to use this hardware. Followed this article: [http://vas3k.com/blog/touchbar/](http://vas3k.com/blog/touchbar/)

I personally have a mix of app launchers, brightness/volume controls and a play/pause button.

</comment><comment><USER47> Late to the party, but I just randomly realized today that copy & paste syncs across iOS and my iMac. Was surprisingly convenient. Apparently it's been around since Sierra, but my settings are now in sync enough to just work.

<comment><USER48> Wait how the hell do you do that??

<comment><USER47> [https://support.apple.com/kb/ph25168?locale=en_US](https://support.apple.com/kb/ph25168?locale=en_US)

It worked for me today for the first time (that I realized). I copied a link from twitter on an iPhone, then pasted on an iMac.

<comment><USER48> Ahhh I have handoff disabled (I cant stand getting phone calls on my laptop)

<comment><USER49> I believe you can turn this off from your phone: Settings > Phone > Calls on Other Devices

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I dont know, I use Rocket which seems to be similar to Pock but after almost a year with it I havent actually made use of it once.

edit: IMHO the problem is the dock itself. it just sucks. even windows 10 taskbar is way better

</comment><comment><USER51> This makes so much sense! The location of the Touch Bar UI is conceptually unfriendly. We're accustomed to a touch pad closest to us but now we have two touch interfaces separated by a huge keyboard-gulf. Moving the dock to the Touch Bar makes sense for the Touch Bar because i. it's a very small shift in location, and ii. dock icons are more direct action buttons compared to more abstract pointing and gestures we can to with the touch pad.

</comment><comment><USER52> Would be more useful if there was a way to reach the touch bar with the mouse. That way, the Dock can completely move to the touch bar permanently.

</comment><comment><USER34> In a similar vein, I've been using TouchBarEmojis[0] which turns the TouchBar into a most frequently used emoji selector and really enjoy it now.

[0] [https://github.com/gabriellorin/touch-bar- emojis](https://github.com/gabriellorin/touch-bar-emojis)

</comment><comment><USER53> Am I able to see both the app icons and the control keys at the same time like the screenshot ([https://pock.dev/assets/img/preview/pock_preview.png](https://pock.dev/assets/img/preview/pock_preview.png)) shows?

<comment><USER54> I was wondering the same thing - so far i can only get control keys or the app icons

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> can't understand the love for this here. the touch bar is not a HUD (heads up display). you still have to context switch and you can't touch type the app you want. it might be better than the default touch bar it's not better and adds no value over the auto hiding dock.

</comment><comment><USER56> I have a Windows/gnome history. So I still miss switching between windows, not apps, easily. Could this deliver that too? Pretty please.

<comment><USER57> As I am currently on my mobile, I am trying to remember the keyboard combination. It's stored in muscle memory, but I believe it is <ctrl> <tab>. But it might be <alt> <tab>.

As said, not sure which of the two it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Thanks for this. I never use the touchbar on my macbook. It's been years and I only use it for esc and sometimes the volume.

</comment><comment><USER59> Suggestions: an option to only show open/active applications.

</comment><comment><USER60> How do you run this after cloning?

<comment><USER61> You would have to build the project in Xcode. It might be easier to download the prebuilt binary on the website.

<comment><USER60> I see the download button now, site wasn't loading fully earlier. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> omg! and no one, even apple, thought about it before!

</comment><comment><USER63> I'll plug another touch bar tool here.

Know how your $3,000 MacBook Pro keyboard keeps breaking? Know what's not broken and close to your keyboard? The touch bar. So I built a keyboard into the touchbar: [https://github.com/RubenSandwich/TouchBarKeyboard](https://github.com/RubenSandwich/TouchBarKeyboard). Problem solved.

But seriously, OP's tool has way more utility then mine.

<comment><USER64> I'll plug another one: [https://www.haptictouchbar.com/](https://www.haptictouchbar.com/)

This uses the trackpad haptic engine to (poorly) emulate a key click when pressing touchbar items.

I'm unsure how they overlooked putting a haptic engine in the touchbar itself but it feels way too late to attempt to salvage now. They need a new keyboard that people will fall in love with.

<comment><USER65> Bringing back something that essentially matches the 2015 keyboard's characteristics would go a long way with most users, in my opinion.

<comment><USER64> "But then how will they make it thinner!?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Isn't this usecase patented by Apple?</comment>


Datadog releases Incident Management, Profiler, Error Tracking, and more - <AUTHOR> https://www.datadoghq.com/blog/dash-2020-new-feature-roundup/ <comment><USER2> I feel like Datadog has a great product. I only wish I hadn't had such negative experiences with their sales team.

<comment><USER3> Yes.... We originally switched to Datadog because we were looking for New Relic alternative, ran across them, signed up for a trial, liked it, the end.

But then like....18 months later we got contacted by our brand new "account manager", who pestered us into a conference call (a bad start!), and then exhibited a simply amazing lack of knowledge of us, our history with Datadog, our current plan and usage, how we're using Datadog, what features we are already using, what features we might find useful, what features Datadog is planning on adding, what features Datadog already has, or indeed, literally anything else about the company they allegedly worked for or the product they were apparently trying to sell.

I was literally telling this sales person "hey, I see you have this feature; it costs a bit more money, but it might solve a problem we have, can you explain to us why we should give your company more money for this feature", and we got so sidetracked trying to explain to the sales person how their own product worked that we never actually got an answer. And that was that; never heard from them again.

I really like Datadog, but it was easily the most frustrating and confusing experience I've ever had talking to a sales person. "Hey, you guys just posted a news article saying Datadog now solves problem X, we have problem X, can you explain how we can give you money in exchange for solving problem X?" Apparently not!

Still love the product, but man, my interactions with them have not been great. (Other than the one disasterous meeting with our account manager, we also have had mixed luck talking to support. They solved the problem eventually, but both times it ended up taking way, WAY more back and forth to get to the bottom of it than I would have expected.)

<comment><USER4> If you'd like to avoid that, have a look at Instana. None of that outrageous pricing, and the focus is actually more about helping you find issues instead of Graph Porn.

Note that I used to work there, so I'm biased.

<comment><USER5> >instead of _Graph Porn_

Thank You. These two words alone describe something I couldn't quite figure out what was wrong with these products. Far too much focus on Graphs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I rage closed that window for downloading a 720p(!) 2.5MB video showing some swooshing squares that takes up the entirety of the "welcome to this content" section. It's one level of disrespect for my time to eat a huge swath of space with a gif, it's a whole other level to put a movie trailer above your blog content just to make squares dance around

In an attempt to rescue this rant with some actual content: one might have interest in the recent series of threads over in r/devops about people's differing experiences between datadog's _product_ and datadog's _organization_. I would guess if there are problems knowing ahead of time how much mere monitoring costs, that "attack surface" grows the more products one attempts to consume from datadog

<comment><USER7> you are angry about 2.5mb video, its 2020 pal get a broadband connection

<comment><USER8> I just moved to Phoenix from Chicago - even in a major US city I'm forced to use DSL by the apartment complex I live in. I didn't think I'd have to check to see if I can get broadband because it seemed insane to think that it wouldn't be available.

Nonetheless, pages with needless weight have become incredibly annoying, inconvenient, and cumbersome. Also, the much of the rest of the US (outside of metro areas) has some really terrible access to decent internet speeds. That's not even to mention anywhere in the rest of the world.

So kindly cool it with your needless condescension. It's unnecessary and contributes nothing.

<comment><USER9> Hey Neighbor!

      If you can get it... Cox has gigablast available here for about $120/month.  I get about 800ish down and 35ish up.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the advice! Unfortunately, the apartment complex has an exclusivity agreement with CenturyLink. Cox and others have expressed willingness to pull cable into my unit, but the management company just won't allow it. It's driving me insane. It's unfortunate that this type of practice is even allowed/legal.

<comment><USER9> oh wow...That really does suck. I haven't tried any of the WISPs[0]yet, but maybe they would work?

0 like [https://www.airfiber.cc/](https://www.airfiber.cc/) ??

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We used DataDog extensively for metrics at my last job. It was awesome, but terribly expensive. Then people wanted to get logs in the same service, so we started rolling that out and it got even more expensive (multiple times competitors like SumoLogic).

Would assume these new features will also come with a hefty pricetag (though for APM it's not like competitors like NewRelic are inexpensive).

<comment><USER11> I think they have the least expensive logging product available. But you have to

1) Not run the DataDog agent (you can use fluent-bit) 2) Filter logs so they are not indexed (and in some cases not ingested)

<comment><USER12> Try LogDNA - it's been the cheapest, fastest and more reliable logging service I've used.

[https://logdna.com/](https://logdna.com/)

<comment><USER11> Their pricing is greater than Datadog's, particularly if you can filter out any logs before indexing them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Datadog pricing is ridiculously complex. Prepare to not really know how much you're paying and how much you owe and why. It's the AWS of metrics.

If you need an APM I recommend appsignal. Predictable pricing, and easy to use/find the right info you need.

</comment><comment><USER14> Profiler looks pretty dope. Does anyone know why neither DataDog nor Google Cloud Profiler support C++? Technically Google supports anything if you implement the agent yourself, but none of these tools ship a C++ profiler out of the box.

<comment><USER15> Regarding Google Cloud Profiler (I'm the PM), this is for a few reasons:

\- We have good support for Go, Java, JS, and Python, but are still adding a few features for these languages (MUSL support for Alpine just shipped, still need to add heap profiling for Python)

\- C++ isn't as heavily used by our ops tools customers as Go, Java, JS, and Python

\- We have several new analysis features in the pipe, and the cost supporting an additional language would slow down the delivery of these

There's no lack of desire to add new languages, but we chose to prioritize completing existing language support and new analytics functionality this year. I'm guessing that the other teams making products in this space face similar constraints and made similar tradeoffs.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for your perspective. When I was at dropbox I wrote a quick tool that would convert perf data files to cloud profiler protobufs and upload them to google. I really appreciate that the API exists allowing people to use whatever language they want. I'm not a huge fan of the datadog model where you need their agent and they don't have a documented API.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> These tools are major. The last company I was at extensively planned error budgets and SLAs, but the tooling was very squishy. Seeing the incident board and tooling around monitoring feels like they hit the nail on the head.

I don't know much about Datadog, but it seems like they are building exactly what their customers need.

</comment><comment><USER17> Recently implemented datadog at a large financial organisation - it does well at focusing on its core features. We had to create a lot of glue to make it enterprise ready - Active directory sync due to it not supporting groups, permission model is poor. If you wanted anything done raise a support ticket rather than with your sales contact too.

<comment><USER18> I work on authentication and access control at Datadog - we've recently improved the group mapping through SAML and we have a number of features in the permission model that we're excited about. Eager to show it off if you're interested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I continue to be really impressed by Datadog. They're in the very exciting post-IPO enterprise SaaS phase where they still have startup mojo + the resources of a large company + the need to continually grow and expand.

I feel for the teams that will need to compete against them as they enter new markets, although I expect that their forays will fail at a fairly high rate (as most product line expansions do).

<comment><USER20> Was reading the whole thread, but got distracted by "post-IPO enterprise SaaS phase". You won buzzword/corporate bingo ;-)

<comment><USER19> Heh, yeah. If you have a less buzzwordy way to phrase that I'd be curious to hear it ;-), I think that the description is accurate although upon reflection I'm with you that it feels pulled out of corporate hell.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The only Datadog feature announcement I look forward to is "we've solved our stability issues!".

I am sick of playing the "is our infrastructure or Datadog's on fire?" game at 3 AM whenever I'm on call. I can only imagine the firefighting their engineering teams are dealing with, but for what you pay, I expect better.

</comment><comment><USER22> Be prepared to pay an arm and leg once you start putting custom metrics into your app.

</comment><comment> rob-olmos If I'm understanding correctly, currently "RUM Errors" is not "Error Tracking", and "RUM Errors" only records an error if that RUM session is actually profiled/recorded?

Ie., you have a RUM sample rate less than 100%, so some errors aren't recorded in RUM Errors? Will that be the same situation for "Error Tracking"?

Curious to see what this pricing is.. eg., any client-side errors get auto- included as a RUM session? There's a good amount of bogus browser errors due to incomplete or oddly sandboxed javascript environments.

</comment><comment><USER23> How does their Incident Management differ to that of Blameless.com which I believe is the current market leader.

</comment><comment><USER24> so is the "error tracking" feature equivalent to Sentry?

<comment><USER10> Yep, seems very much the same type of thing.

<comment><USER25> Except more expensive...

<comment><USER26> Didn't they say it was included for free?

<comment><USER25> Not that I can see. The article doesn't say it's free or at no additional cost that I can find, so I'll not assume it's either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Anyone using their APM? why/ why not?

<comment><USER28> Using it on all of our services, we all love it. Troubleshooting and optimizations are ridiculously simply, there isn't much investigation, APM just tells you what is wrong, saves a lot of Dev time and we'll worth the money IMO

<comment><USER29> What language? I tried Python Django a year ago and didn't get half the detail NewRelic shows out of the box. Given the much higher price I didn't even bother looking into custom instrumentalization.

But a year has passed, maybe I should give it another try since NewRelic is trying to make everything as hard as possible with their new UI.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple takes down videos of people booing the $1000 stand via copyright claims - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/06/05/apple_stand_copyright_lockdown/ <comment><USER2> Yeah, that should do it, problem solved!

When you have to abuse copyright, you are doing it wrong.</comment>


Firefox 80 and my confusion over its hardware accelerated video on Linux - <AUTHOR> https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/web/Firefox80VideoAccelConfusion <comment><USER2> What Firefox really needs is a little icon (preferably displayed prominently in the toolbar) that appears when videos are not being decoded in hardware. I'm sure they've lost users who just think Firefox is "super laggy with YouTube" or that "Firefox really eats battery". An indication that something is wrong and the browser knows about it prevents the assumption that the browser is just buggy/slow/etc; the word-of-mouth changes from "Firefox sucks" to "Firefox told me it couldn't hardware accelerate my videos or something?" Still not positive, but potential users will hear that Firefox might not work with their hardware, rather than that Firefox is buggy, slow, and unreliable.

And I know technical users would appreciate it. I _still_ don't know what is and isn't getting hardware video decode, or whether I actually need a particular about:config flag or system package, and I have tried hard to figure out.

<comment><USER3> The default assumption today and in the past on Linux is that there is zero hardware accelerated video display in any browser.

<comment><USER4> Which is why macOS, Windows and ChromeOS are the platforms for anyone who care about video hardware acceleration without messing with configurations.

<comment><USER5> ChromeOS is Linux.

<comment><USER6> I mean, sure, at a kernel level. It has its own GUI rendering stack (Freon) rather than the usual X11/Wayland of "normal" Linux, and it's Freon that has their acceleration support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes, the UX is raw for now; hopefully Mozilla will make it simpler to enable after a few versions of testing and confirming it doesn't cause crashes for half the linux userbase. It makes sense to do little _early_ advertising of such a feature, and to initially hide it behind flags & env. vars only within reach of "power users", because these fresh-out-of-the-oven bits are a complex assembly with heavy crash potential, depending on your hardware and drivers up-to-date-ness. As the implementer, you want your initial users to know what they are doing, and you want to maximize the chances they're technically proficient enough to gather the mountain of gpu/driver/environment debug info you'll need for a bug report to be actionable.

In the meantime, to save you rummaging around bugzilla, follow [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Firefox#Hardware_video_...](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Firefox#Hardware_video_acceleration) , it's the most constantly {up-to-date, concise, reliable} source you'll find. You don't have to be using Arch, the information contained in this section applies to any Linux/Firefox distro.

Note that Firefox isn't the only browser to struggle with it; see [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Chromium#Hardware_video...](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Chromium#Hardware_video_acceleration) for the similarly non-obvious instructions in Chromium (and by the way, currently it's plain impossible in Chrome).

Props to Martin Stransky from RedHat who implemented this for both Wayland and Xorg during the last months.

<comment><USER8> do what chrome does, detect crash and fallback. what are sandboxes even for if you can't crash once in a while without whining too much about it...

<comment><USER7> I doubt things are that simple.

See my before-last paragraph above: no, regarding hardware _video_ acceleration, even Chrome doesn't do what you describe. What you describe stands for non-video content crashes, which isn't what's being discussed here. Could the technique you mention be applied to _video_ gpu crashes? I personally don't know and I'd lean towards "nope" (else Mozilla & Google engineers wouldn't be so exceedingly cautious about it). If anyone is knowledgeable enough to precise / contradict this, please chime in.

At any rate, even Chrome is built with _zero_ hardware video acceleration support on Linux (hardware acceleration yes, hardware video acceleration no). Chromium does offer the option, just as hidden behind flags as Firefox, and until last month you had to build it yourself with a VAAPI patch left unmerged for years by Chromium devs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> IDK why this post is so negative. The post says it's the first release with that feature, and that things are still improving. I'm happy that it's being worked on at all and maybe a couple more releases down the road it's available to me as well. Mozilla/Firefox contributors are adding a feature here in the open but it turn out it's very complicated to add it.

<comment><USER10> Hardware accelerated video decoding is a feature that is and has been critical for battery life on laptops for years.

ffmpeg has supported this for forever and yet firefox doesn't. It's bizarre.

<comment><USER11> Do you believe enabling hardware video decoding in Firefox was a trivial effort?

<comment><USER12> What Firefox 78-80 brought was hardware video decoding under Linux, not hardware video decoding in general.

Under Windows and MacOS, it has been implemented years ago. Under Linux, it wasn't. Linux has API for video acceleration and players like VLC, mpv or Kodi have been supporting it for years, as well as ffmpeg, just browsers ignored it.

I'm not going to belittle the effort, quite opposite, but it is telling when this feature has been implemented by Redhat employee and not Mozilla.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've never fully understood just what exactly the problem is?

Many apps ranging from vlc to Totem seem to hardware accelerate just fine, all without seeming to know or care which specific hardware I'm using.

What makes it so much more difficult for FF?

<comment> Const-me I think legacy contributed most.

On modern Linux, it's possible, and not even terribly hard, to implement hardware-accelerated video playback without any libraries or frameworks, by directly consuming V4L2 API exposed by the kernel. Here's a proof, I did it alone spending a month or so part time, and resource use is lower than VLC's despite my code is in .NET: [https://github.com/Const- me/Vrmac/tree/master/VrmacVideo](https://github.com/Const- me/Vrmac/tree/master/VrmacVideo)

However, that wasn't always the case. Until recently software had to fallback to software decoders, and implement other workarounds. Software developers are reluctant to throw away old code and do something completely different.

1\. They spent much time on that old code (sunk cost fallacy).

2\. Old code usually works more often than it doesn't (don't fix things which aren't broken).

3\. Massive refactor of large software is very expensive in general. Moving stuff from CPU to GPU is going to cause large changes in many parts. You can't usually afford to copy uncompressed video frames from VRAM back to system RAM and call it a day, that would be too much bandwidth. Instead, you have to change a lot of other code to handle GPU textures instead of system RAM images.

<comment><USER14> > On modern Linux, it's possible, and not even terribly hard, to implement > hardware-accelerated video playback without any libraries or frameworks, by > directly consuming V4L2 API exposed by the kernel

Do you mean V4L2 M2M decoding? That's only supported on a very small subset of devices, mostly ARM devices. Other devices might use VA-API (Intel), VDPAU (NVIDIA proprietary), or something from the OpenMAX standard (some AMD drivers).

M2M is far from easy to handle in a lot of circumstances, though it depends on the kinds of devices you use. I don't really know why you're going into a screed about "sunk cost fallacy".

<comment><USER12> AMD uses VA-API nowadays.

<comment><USER15> As does Nvidia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I ran into similar issues with driver blocklists on both Linux and Windows. There are workarounds, such as setting MOZ_GFX_SPOOF_* environment variables, but even the suggestions on the Mozilla Wiki at [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Blocklisting/Blocked_Graphics_Drive...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Blocklisting/Blocked_Graphics_Drivers#How_to_force- enable_blocked_graphics_features) no longer work, because the spoofed driver version (188.8.131.522) was blocked in [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/843273](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/843273) It's a mess.

I can understand the desire to avoid using drivers which cause a poor user experience. I don't envy the task of trying to implement and maintain a system to achieve that. I do wish it wasn't so painful and confusing for users when the behavior doesn't match our expectations.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's not possible go get VA-API to work in FF 88 on X11 or Wayland because VA- API was broken in Firefox 79. The fix is in FF 81.

<comment><USER18> Not sure I follow, did you possibly mean:

It's not possible to get VA-API to work in FF 80 on X11 or Wayland because VA- API has been broken since FF 79. The fix will be in FF 81.

Just guessing, I have not looked into the topic except in this thread. What would be the bugzilla id for that?

<comment><USER17> Replace the '88' with '80'.

VA-API hardware video acceleration was broken in Firefox 79 and won't be fixed until Firefox 81. Therefore, it's not possible to make VA-API work, under either Wayland or X11, in Firefox 80.

See: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1656436](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1656436)

<comment><USER18> So to put it cynically: In FF 80 the situation is crystal clear, not at all confusing as the original article claims: It doesn't work.

In FF 81 it will be confusing to the non-experienced again: You need to fiddle with config and environment variables. Well, unless a new bug comes up...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I did manage to get it working but it has a ton of issues with Youtube vp9 decoding despite Chromium's years-old implementation working fine.

This is complex stuff. I spent a day last week trying to figure out why hevc vaapi patches for OBS were failing with mkv containers but not mp4 ones. Its just really ugly C apis all the way down.

</comment><comment><USER20> For me, on Arch LTS/wayland/gnome Firefox's video hardware acceleration became buggy since Firefoxy 79 (I followed the Arch wiki recommendations). I had to disable the gfx renderer. And cpu consumption is only marginally better than Chromium. When enabled, cpu consumption is very low <10% watching 720p YT videos, between 10-20% for 1080p but the video player crashes very often.

</comment><comment><USER18> What would be a poor man's reliable test to see whether acceleration is actually in use or not? If you could just reliably switch it on and off the difference should be obvious in top, possibly by switching to threads view by pressing H (instead of the processes default). But if you cannot, there is nothing to compare.

<comment><USER21> Go to about:support and look in the Graphics section.

<comment><USER18> not at my computer now, but if I remember right, that shows you whether HW acceleration could in theory work for some video or not at all. The second case is a clear one. But in the first case you still don't know whether it is actually used for a certain video or not. I understand there can be many parameters preventing usage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> From what I can gather, they're using an Intel card, which I don't think supports VA-API on MPEG-4 videos. Further, I can't tell which distro they use but I'm not sure when the Intel work was added. Their distro provided version would likely iron out some of these issues.

<comment><USER12> That Intel 8700K definitely supports VA-API with H.264, HEVC and VP9, decoding and encoding. An extra driver is (intel-vaapi-driver) is needed, it is not distributed and installed together with Mesa as AMD driver is.

<comment><USER22> >That Intel 8700K definitely supports VA-API with H.264, HEVC and VP9, decoding and encoding

It does not support MPEG-4, or it's disabled by default. I don't know how widespread that format is, but I believe it was developed with streaming in mind.

<comment><USER12> If you mean MPEG 4 ASP (i.e. part 2, as opposed to H.264, which is also MPEG-4, but part 10) I don't believe any Intel hardware did ever support it. Today, it is obsolete.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is just one of the times where you'd just have to read the source. No documentation usually means I start diving into the source code.

<comment><USER24> That attitude/capability is closely related to a job interview question I tend to use. "Could you tell me about a time you delved into the source code of some software product or library to fix a problem you faced?"

(My pet theory: I think often it's just the attitude that is missing. So much can be accompished with the right attitude.)

<comment><USER25> It's impossible to get anything done otherwise, and some cursory investigation is usually a lot faster than emailing some overworked maintainer with nothing but "plz help".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yeah, since the anti-Flash movement has won, Linux is even less interesting for anyone wanting an out of the box experience regarding video hardware acceleration for Web browsers.</comment>


Startup Idea: A Better ISP - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@karti/startup-idea-a-better-isp-f30d10dd45b8 <comment><USER2> One of the biggest ISPs in Germany, Telekom, offers such a model ("WLAN TO GO") since more then 10yrs. It is an opt-in agreement that you can use other people's APs if you also open yours. Many other ISPs offer the same service, for instance Unitymedia.

Furthermore, there are popular nonprofits with similar aims, for instance freifunk.net (despite this is not an ISP).

Something I would find very interesting is opening eduroam.org for other organizations/private people. It is the worldwide dominating "shared WiFi" approach in the scientific domain.

</comment><comment><USER3> Charging per the gigabyte is a greedy, bullshit idea that needs to die. It is the whole opposite of "better".

This idea of shared Wi-Fi is done by pretty much every ISP out there and nobody uses it for very good reason: it's just not reliable nor performant enough. No matter whether you use Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 50, you're only getting good speeds with line of sight, low interference environments and good hardware.</comment>


Confused about closures and 'this'? Check out my guide to JavaScript scoping - <AUTHOR> https://jesseduffield.com/everything-i-wish-i-knew-about-javascript-scoping-a-week-ago/ <comment><AUTHOR> I couple of weeks ago I did a deep-dive into JavaScript scoping and learnt a lot about how closures work under the hood and why we the `this` keyword exists in the first place. I wrote a guide that explained everything to my two-weeks-younger self and made a video covering most of it too!

I try my best to back up everything I claim experimentally via chrome dev tools but there are a couple of things that are specific to ECMAScript. Let me know your thoughts :)</comment>